Til I Stop Pretending
by Daughterof8
Summary: "It means that no guy is friends with a girl unless he has a crush on her!" "That's ridiculous. We're friends, and you don't have a crush on me." / In which Ally is a little bit blind and Austin is a little bit frustrated. Auslly oneshot.


"Come on, Ally. I'm telling you. There's no way that you guys are going to remain just friends for long," Austin said to his best friend as he followed her into Sonic Boom.

Ally rolled her eyes and turned around, placing her hands on her hips. "And Austin, I'm telling you that there's no way that he wants to be more than friends. He hasn't done anything at all to hint toward that."

"Maybe nothing obvious. But, Ally, I see it in his eyes!" Austin argued, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Right," Ally scoffed. "Because you've spent so much time studying his eyes."

"Well, I'm sure _you_ have," he snapped back. "So haven't you seen it?"

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"It _means_ that no guy is friends with a girl unless he has a crush on her!" Austin exclaimed, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

"That's ridiculous," Ally replied flatly. "We're friends, and you don't have a crush on me."

"You don't know that! Just like you don't know if he does or not!"

"What are you even—argh, stop it, Austin! You're not making any sense! I am _positive_ that neither you nor he has a crush on me," Ally declared, spinning on her heel and marching up to the practice room.

"How can you possibly be completely sure about that?!" Austin cried, striding after her. "Have you asked either one of us how we feel?"

"I don't have to! I can see it in your _eyes,_ " she mocked, turning around to face him once in the practice room.

Austin narrowed his eyes. "Well, then you're obviously blind."

" _Excuse_ me?"

"You're blind! Dense! Unable to see what's right in front of you!"

Her eyes flashed. "And just _what_ is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you think you're such a know-it-all, and yet you're wrong about one of the most important things ever," Austin said in a dangerously calm voice.

She looked hurt for a moment. "Oh yeah? Considering that your mental ability is that of a five-year-old most of the time, I don't think you should talk, Mr. Zebras-Aren't-Real."

"They _aren't!"_ he thundered. His hands fisted at his sides as he glared at her. "And I'm not a five-year-old!"

"You're sure acting like one!"

"Me? What about you? I know you like being a little girl, but you're gonna have to grow up sometime!"

"I don't know what that _means!_ "

"Oh, look, that's something else that little Miss Know-It-All doesn't know."

"Austin," Ally said helplessly. She lowered her gaze and turned to sit at the piano. "You're being mean."

"Oh, _I'm_ the one who's—oh." He deflated and ran a hand through his hair, letting out a breath when her sad countenance registered with him. "Oh."

She risked a glance over at him just as he looked at her. Their eyes met, hers brown and pleading, and his blue and guilty. Messages were sent and received between them, and, finally, after a long few moments, Austin made his way over to her and sat down next to her on the piano bench.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, avoiding her gaze. "I don't know what came over me."

Ally felt tears come to her eyes as she shook her head and threw her arms around him. "No, no, I'm sorry. I was really mean. I'm sorry. I didn't mean any of it."

He brought his arms up and hugged her tight, burying his face in her hair. "I was worse. I'm sorry. I was being mean and unfair, and you don't deserve that. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry."

"You're forgiven," Ally said, her voice muffled by his shirt. "It's okay. Don't worry about it."

"No, it's—it's not okay, Als. I'm . . ." He hesitated, feeling relieved that she wasn't looking at his face. "I overreacted, and I blamed you, and you don't even know . . ."

She pulled back slightly but didn't leave his arms completely. "Know what?"

"Know that . . . well, I . . . you know how I said the thing about guys only being friends with girls because they have a crush, and . . ." He shook his head and started climbing off the bench. "Nope. I can't. I can't do it."

"Austin, no, wait." Ally grabbed his arm and pulled him back. She furrowed her brow as she thought back to a few minutes ago. "You said that, and then you . . . you started saying something about me never asking you about it, and . . ."

He forced himself to meet her eyes—the eyes that were currently searching his, looking confused yet somehow understanding.

"Austin," Ally murmured slowly, still scrutinizing him. "Do you . . . are you . . ."

"Yeah," he mumbled, dropping his head. "Yeah, I do."

"How long?"

He smiled self-deprecatingly. "You don't want to know."

Ally squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, and when she opened them, her face had an amused yet pained look on it. "Wow."

Austin snorted. "Yeah. Wow."

"That's why you were so jealous of him," she said quietly.

"I was not—okay, yeah," he admitted. He groaned and then let out a small chuckle. "I can't believe you know. This is so weird."

"Yeah, um, well, it might get weirder." Ally coughed a little and turned bright red. "So you know that statement . . . it, um . . . well . . . it's sort of true for girls, too?"

He studied her intently before raising a corner of his mouth up in a half-smile. "Yeah?"

She let out a nervous giggle. "Yeah."

"How does that make this even weirder?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Does this not feel weirder to you? 'Cause it sure feels weirder to me."

"Oh." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Guess it kind of does."

"So," she said after a pause.

"So," he echoed.

"Here we are . . . awkwardly sitting next to each other . . . after revealing that we're crushing on each other . . . not knowing what to do next . . ." Ally trailed off.

"Oh, for crying out loud," Austin muttered before pulling her closer to him and covering her mouth with his.

Ally squeaked and widened her eyes briefly before she shut them and wrapped her arms around him. His lips were firm yet not overly demanding, and in her opinion, he pulled away entirely too soon.

He leaned his forehead against hers and smirked. " _That's_ what you do next."

"Oh geez," she muttered, but she grinned back at him. "Well, then, what do we do _now,_ since that's been taken care of?"

"Let's see. We could go our separate ways and pretend this never happened, with you going to hang out with _him;_ we could go downstairs and announce to the world that we're dating; or," he leaned in closer to her and finished with a mischievous smile, "we could stay up here by ourselves for a while."

Ally frowned thoughtfully. "Stay up here and keep it to ourselves, or go downstairs and brag that Austin Moon is my boyfriend. Hmm." She looked at him slyly. "I wanna go tell everyone that you're mine!" As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she was scrambling off the bench and making her way to the door.

"What—hey! Ally!" Caught off guard, Austin was a bit slower on the uptake, but he still managed to catch her before she went downstairs. "No. That was the wrong answer."

"I didn't know that there was a right answer."

"Really, huh?" He pulled her back into the room and closed the door behind her. "Well, now you know."

She cast a regretful glance at the door. "I still kinda wanna go shout out from the rooftops that we're together."

"I do, too, but there's something else I wanna do first." And not giving her a chance to respond, he leaned down and captured her lips with his once more.

 _ **Author's Notes**_

 **Disclaimer: I don't own these characters at all, no matter how much I beg Disney.**

 **So, yeah, there's this. It was kind of inspired by Mighty Med, as I did borrow a line or two from the show, but the rest of it just kind of happened. I sorta like it.**

 **(And can I please just point out that it is a testament to how much I love these characters that I stayed up past midnight to get this all out of my mind when I really should have been sleeping in order to be prepared to learn calculus early tomorrow morning.)**


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